I challenge anyone to read Drivl’s answers to Slate’s unanswered questions and come away with any conclusion other than that Slate’s readers are blithering idiots. Choice examples:
Hello … Could you tell me if there’s been any kind of medical discovery in the last 30 years besides DNA.
as well as
PYGMIES: How/when/where/still in existence/do we mate with them?
I swear I am not making this up. Humanity may well be doomed.
Dad wants a Morbark 30 Whole-Tree Chipper.
How anyone can save plastic by eating dolphins is beyond me, but sure. Someone hand CNN’s editorial staff a hyphen, please.
That’s just awesome. It’s fake, of course, but it’s still awesome.
Actual, legitimate e-mail in my inbox not five minutes ago:
From: [name redacted to protect the guilty]
Subject: what is my user name and password.Camino is asking for my user name and password. How can i get this information.
I swear I am not making this up.
A ski-track kit for my mountain bike. That’s wicked cool.
Paging Captain Obvious. Obvious? Is there a Captain Obvious in the house?
Bob Grim, Harris Poll voter and former NFL wide receiver, on why he voted Florida ahead of Michigan:
If they have a rematch and Michigan wins, then who’s the national champion?
Well, according to this ridiculous system you’re actively participating in there, Bob, the national champion would be the one who wins the so-called national championship game. Nothing more, nothing less.
The BCS is a crock of shit, and now everyone knows it. Since being instituted in 2002, it has resulted in exactly one “championship” game and three you-gotta-be-kidding-me farces.
Any system that relies largely on human polls — and, despite the computer rankings, the BCS hinges on human voters by any reasonable measure — is going to be irreparably flawed until a playoff system is instituted to iron out the — and I’m being gracious here — “aberrations” in human voting. Case in point:
I just finished looking at the final Harris Poll individual rankings, and 4 voters had Michigan ranked 4th, of the 4 that put U-M 4th, one voter (from Las Vegas) had USC 3rd, another (from Pittsburgh) had Louisville 2nd (Florida 3rd), another (from Baton Rouge) had LSU 3rd, and another (from Birmingham, AL) had Louisville 3rd.
Ray Melick, Tim Neverett, Gene Ponti, and Paul Zeise, in alphabetical order, are the voters referred to here. -cl
That’s from a poster on the Freep’s message boards, who is undoubtedly (like me) a fan of the Maize and Blue, but you can’t deny he has a point. No sane person, when asked solely to rank this year’s crop of college football teams, would place Louisville — who lost at now-No. 15 Rutgers — or USC — who lost two games to unranked opponents! — above either Florida or Michigan. (A side note: USC’s two losses came against Oregon State, who finished the year ranked 24th in the AP poll and tied for 25th in the coaches’ poll, and UCLA, who received two votes — yes, two — in the AP poll and zero in the coaches’ poll.)
The only way this is ever going to get solved is with a four-team (or possibly eight-team) playoff. And by Harris Interactive revoking the credentials of the four idiots who took Urban Meyer’s money in exchange for voting Michigan out of the title game. To be fair, Harris should also kick out Jim Walden, who inexplicably ranked Florida #1; Larry Keech, who ranked Boise State #2 (unless he did it strictly because they’re the last remaining undefeated team besides Ohio State); and Robert Lawless, who decided both Louisville and Wisconsin (Wisconsin? Seriously?) were better than Florida.
Oh, and Urban: You’re coaching at Florida now. That’s a fairly big football school in a pretty good football conference, your Division I-AA opponents notwithstanding. It makes you look completely classless when you campaign for your boys like you were still at Utah. Let them settle it on the field, and when the pollsters want your opinion, they’ll give it to you. You’re a disgrace to college football, keeping with the long, proud, disgraceful tradition of Florida coaches.
UPDATE: Pat Forde agrees with me, right down to calling out Jim Walden and Urban Meyer’s crass politicking. Incidentally, Gene Wojciechowski does too.
“Drive by eggings / plaguing L.A. / ‘Yo, they just got my little cousin, es?©!’”